An ordinary family living a less ordinary life

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Up in your Business

I’ve read articles about how Facebook is changing our generation (no specific ones come to mind). Pre-FB and pre-twitter and pre-instagram we didn’t know our neighbors’ business…we didn’t know what they had for lunch…that they have the flu AGAIN…where they went for vacation. According to the experts, Facebook is changing the way we relate; we’ve become scarily open, all TMI and whatnot, because we feel a certain amount of anonymity onscreen.

We connect online, but disconnect in real life.

I’m sure the social experts are right…but it strikes me as hilarious that the Facebook crowd is a lot like small village life. I know so much about my neighbors and friends here. I know what they usually eat. I know what they don’t like. I know all of their physical ailments (small talk here is about headaches more then it’s about the weather). I know what they’ve got planted in their garden. I know why they just got back from the river. I know their birth control methods.

Hanging out under my neighbors’ house is a lot like reading string after string of status updates on Facebook.

But, I can’t reach out and slap my neighbor’s mosquitos over Facebook, or snuggle the cute baby (while wondering if I’m going to get peed on), or smile and hear my friends laugh. I guess it really is good to live in a tight offline community, open myself up, and work to connect. Even if conversations usually go TMI.

PS Is it just me or is this post a lot like others I’ve written? I’m offline right now, so I can’t go check it out.